Friday, April 24, 2009

Kevin Youkilis: The Greek God of Walk-Off Home Runs

Red Sox-Yankees. Best rivalry in baseball. Bar none. Youkilis and Joba Chamberlain with some history. Bad blood between them after Chamberlain's blazing brushback pitch last summer.

Present day. Red Sox losing 4-2 in the bottom of the 9th. Youkilis singles to center off the nearly flawless Mariano Rivera. Jason Bay ties the game with a home run to deep left center.

Extra innings.

Damaso Marte in relief for the Yankees. Strikes out Nick Green, gets Jacoby Ellsbury to pop up, and strikes out the reigning AL MVP in the 10th.

Bottom of the 11th. Marte still pitching. David Ortiz goes down swinging. Youkilis steps up to the plate. And hits an absolute bomb to left over the Green Monster. Ball game.

It almost seems trivial by comparison, but Brad Ausmus had a big hit of his own tonight against the Rockies. Ausmus delivered in the clutch for the Dodgers with what turned out to be the game-winning hit in the top of the 9th inning. He hit a single through the left side that plated James Loney from second. Looks like this grizzly veteran won't be going into retirement quietly.

2 comments:

William J. Tasker said...

(sigh) Happy for Youkilis. Sad for Mariano.

Josh Borenstein said...

I've been reading The Yankee Years. Pretty good. Definitely a page- turner. One part that stuck out to me was how Torre was disappointed with Yankee fans when they booed Rivera in 2005 or 2006 after a blown save.

Also, Bernie Williams' departure was handled very poorly by Cashman. The man doesn't have a soul.